Grid display systems composed of a rack or grid made up of plural co-planar horizontal crossbars or wire rods interjoined by relatively widely spaced vertical support rods and a plurality of display hooks which may be fastened to the crossbars for purposes of displaying merchandise are well known and a familiar part of the merchandise display art. The general advantage of a merchandise display system of this order is the provision of a very flexible system where the display hooks may be placed in an infinite variety of positions and spaced at selected lateral and vertical intervals to accommodate various sized products being displayed. Usually the merchandise to be displayed is packaged and the hooks include an extending elongated support or display rod insertable through an eyelet formed in the packaging. Each support rod can support one or more packages so that the system provides a convenient way of not only displaying the packaged merchandise, but storing a ready supply which is important for self service merchandizing. In the past typical display hook structures have included a hook section made of a formed metal plate secured to the base end of an extending merchandise display rod; the hook section being of relatively wide or lateral dimension and having a substantially U-shaped configuration so that it is capable of fitting over a pair of adjacent parallel horizontal crossbar wires. The display rod portion of the hook structure is normally a formed wire rod having a base end portion secured, as by welding or the like, to the plate or body of the hook section. Because of the relatively wide dimension of the hook section, placing two or more hook structures alongside of one another so that the extending merchandise display rod portions thereof may accommodate heavy or bulky merchandise packages is not readily feasible. In addition because of the relatively extended lateral dimension of the hook section, the positioning of the known hook structures in alignment with or so that the display rod is next to a vertical support wire of the grid network is not possible, thus wasting valuable lateral space of the support grid.
The above and further problems and drawbacks of the prior art are satisfactorily resolved by the present invention which presents marked improvements over hook structures heretofore known in the art.
In brief, the present invention comprises an improved hook structure for use in grid or crossbar merchandise display systems which is composed of a simplified hook section made up of two identical stamped metal plates posed in side by side parallelism on opposite sides of an intervening base end of a display rod; the plates and display rod being integrated, as by welding, into a rigid sandwich of relatively narrow dimensions. The stamped parts are formed with appropriate hook fingers capable of snap fit engagement with a pair of adjacent horizontally parallel crossbars of the support grid. Because of the simplicity of the structure, the provision of the two identically stamped parts provides a far more economical, fast and precise method of presenting a hook capable of snap-fit engagement with the grid members and further permits the use of a straight or non-formed end of a wire display rod to be entrapped and welded between the stamped plates, as opposed to preforming one end of a wire display rod prior to its connection to a conventional planar back plate of the hook section in accordance with past practice. Because of the narrow dimensioning of the hook section in accordance with the structure of this invention, two or more hook structures may be placed in contacting adjacency to support heavy packages thereon. Since the two plates or stamped metal parts of each hook section are in parallel spaced relationship, the same may receive on upright support of the display grid therebetween or be placed in back-to-back interleaved relationship and engaged at the same location with the same pair of wire rods of the supporting grid to materially increase display capacity of the system.
It is a principle object of this invention to provide an improved hook structure for utilization with crossbar or grid display systems which exhibits an improved versatility of use and economy of available display space.
Another important object of this invention is to provide an improved display hook structure for use with grid display systems which lends itself to improved and simplified manufacture and assembly procedures leading to economies of production.
A still further important object of this invention is to provide an improved display hook structure of the order set out in the preceeding two objectives which is capable of back-to-back display use so that two hook structures may share the same pair of wire crossbars of the grid display network in substantially the same location.
Another important object of this invention is to provide a grid display hook structure having a very narrow overall lateral dimension which facilitates more efficient utilization of available lateral display space provided by the supporting grid network.
Having described this invention, the above and further objects, features and advantages thereof will appear from time to time in the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof, illustrated in the accompanying drawings and representing the best mode presently contemplated for enabling those of skill in the art to practice this invention.